The Quest for Cool

At one time your faithful correspondent was a member of the United Methodist Church. The UMC had, at one time, the reputation of being a Bible based, though Arminian congregation. Then, sometime beginning in the early 60s, the rot set in. By rot I mean theological liberalism. After the theological liberals managed to work their ways out of the pulpits and into the District Superintendent and Bishopric positions theological liberalism became the default position of the church. The Bible was no longer the Word of God. It became a somehow more valid version of Ovid's Metamorphosis. Christ was no longer Virgin born, Adam was no longer the first man, the Sermon on the Mount became a prescription instead of an indictment. The list goes on and on. The UMC, in its leadership, became what 19th century Unitarians were, with a social reforming agenda. Man did everything and God was a shriveled up old guy sitting in a corner as helpless as a kitten cornered by a pitbull. It was man's duty to save God instead of God through Christ saving man.

Once I started reading the Bible seriously I decided I'd had it with such Deistic nonsense. To paraphrase Flannery O'Connor, if the Bible isn't true, then to hell with it. I decided that the Bible was true and I upped stakes, leaving a lot of friends behind and, after a false start or two, found a worshipping body that held that the Bible was inerrant, that Adam was the first man, that Jesus was born of a Virgin, that God hates sin, that man is a sinner and that Christ saves sinners.

For various reasons I was, am and will be a little leery of the Roman Catholic Church. One of the reasons is that the Catholic Church has extra-Biblical beliefs i.e., Mary as co-Mediatrix, purgatory, the gaining of grace through the sacraments, et al. And I figured that if the Roman Catholic Church takes the position that it can add to the Bible, that means that it can subtract from the Bible.

Well, slap me silly and call me Martin Luther, the English bishops have decided that certain parts of the Bible are just not true. See this link:Catholic Church no longer swears by truth of the Bible - World - Times Online. (Tip o' the lid to Tammy Bruce) What I want to know is why any person subscribing to the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church should trust this bunch of guys. Consider this: when they took their vows as priests they vowed that they believed the Bible. Now they don't. Have they had a revelation? Perhaps the Holy Ghost came down and whispered in their collective ears that the Scriptures that have informed, educated and inspired close to 2,000 years of Christians is just an allegory? Or do these fellows want to try to pull back in the fallen by lowering the standards? Or perhaps they sailed into their positions while flying false colors; cuckoos as it were, laying their strange eggs in the True nest while pushing the native eggs out. Why should any Catholic who listens to this bunch consider the Eucharist the real Body of Christ when the bishops say that parts to the Bible are not true? And does the man in the pew get to pick and choose in the same way that the bishops do.

But, hey, the bishops want to be cool and with it and respected by the average newspaper and television opinion spouter, so who can blame them for playing the part of Judas and/or Simon Magus? They have shown themselves to be simoniacs by the very fact that they have, over the years preached one thing and believed another while drawing a paycheck. When their world begins to crumble about their ears they shouldn't wonder why.